If you want to grow your email list, you need a way for people to join said email list. A lead generation funnel is the best and fastest way to make that happen.
To create a lead generation funnel that actually converts, there are 8 pieces you need to have in place.
I have written about each of these pieces before, but I’ve never put the whole process into one blog post. You’ll see links to earlier posts that go more in-depth throughout this post, so if you want more information, follow those links to get the full story.
First, I should answer a basic question:
What is a Lead Generation Funnel?
“Lead generation funnel” is a pretty broad term. In general, it involves moving people from being potential customers to paying customers.
In our specific instance, it looks like the picture above.
You promote a lead magnet and drive traffic to a landing page where people who are interested give you their email address in exchange for said lead magnet. This takes them to a thank you page, so they know they’ve completed the process correctly.
Immediately after they’ve opted into your lead magnet, they receive a welcome sequence via email. After they complete that sequence, they join your regular email cadence and receive nurturing and sales emails on a regular basis, which urge them to become a paying customer.
Don’t worry, it’s pretty easy to set up. This blog post walks you through the basics. The links take you to posts with more details on each piece.
I will note that my pieces are slightly out of order, based on the image above. My steps are written in the order you should be creating your lead generation funnel, not the order your subscribers will move through it.
There is one piece in the picture above that is missing. And it is crucial to making your lead generation funnel work.
1. Know Your Target Audience
The first thing you must know to get the “right” customers in the door of your business is who those “right” customers are. As much as we business owners might want to believe that everyone under the sun needs our products and services, that’s just not true.
Which means before you can create your lead generation funnel, you have to identify your target audience. These are the people who have a problem that your product or service will solve perfectly.
Start by creating a snapshot of your Ideal Customer or Customer Avatar.
This is a document that lists the customer demographics, psychographics and characteristics of the person you believe is most likely to purchase your product or service. It should include everything from their age and gender to a short, personal back story that involves why they need your product or service.
Give your Customer Avatar a name. This will help you identify who you’re talking about when you’re discussing this person with members of your team, freelancers or other business owners. It’s also helpful if you have more than one Customer Avatar, which is common for many businesses.
Finally, add a picture of someone who you think would buy your product or service.
This may feel like an “exercise you must go through” but the purpose is to get this person into your head, so you can get inside their head. When you start to think like your Customer Avatar, you’ll have a much easier time finding the right language to persuade them to buy from you.
Once you have this snapshot in place, go find these people and listen to them talk about their problems. This will give you that language I mentioned above.
Social media is a great place to find your target audience. You probably also know someone who fits the description of your Customer Avatar. Ask them to have a conversation with you about their situation and what they envision as the “perfect solution.”
Now that you know who you’re talking to and what their problems are, you can create the next piece in your lead generation funnel.
2. Your Irresistible Lead Magnet
At the top of your lead generation funnel, you give people who subscribe to your email list a lead magnet (also known as an opt-in bribe) in exchange for their email address.
Typically, this is a digital file people can download. It can also be a coupon, or a physical object like a sample, if you plan on shipping the object to your new subscribers.
What you’re giving away needs to be something your target audience wants. It also needs to relate to the product or service you’ll ultimately sell them.
Finally, you need your lead magnet to give your new subscriber a “small, quick win,” to quote Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income.
Ideally, there should be some way for your new subscriber to take what you’ve given them and achieve success with part of their problem. Once they’ve achieved this success, they’ll want more. Which leads nicely into your product or service.
Think of it like the samples you get at the grocery store or the food court at your local mall. It gives your target audience a taste of what they’ll get if they buy the whole thing.
Here are 15 ideas for lead magnets to get you going.
Next, you’ll need a way for people to find out about your lead magnet and give you their email addresses in exchange for it.
3. Build a Landing Page Where New Subscribers Can Get Your Lead Magnet
A landing page (also known as an opt-in or squeeze page) is a stand-alone page with one job and one job only, to get people to sign up for your lead magnet.
Many companies make the mistake of putting their company menu or other links on their landing pages.
Don’t do this.
Your landing page should have one call to action, which is to ask visitors to sign up for your lead magnet. It can include information about the lead magnet, like why people should download it and the benefits they’ll get when they follow the instructions you give them.
Anything beyond that will distract your landing page visitors and may cause them to click away from this page before they’ve signed up.
Okay, now that I’ve gone on that little rant, here is what you should have on your landing page:
- An image that represents your lead magnet: It can be a picture of the actual lead magnet or an image that connects to your lead magnet.
- A call to action to download the lead magnet.
- A simple opt-in form where people enter their information.
- A button that will get people to click it.
There are various tools out there you can use to create your landing page. This may include your email service provider (ESP) or customer relationship management platform (CRM), depending on which platform you’re using.
Many of these tools include landing page templates. (Some tools are exclusively landing page templates, so make sure whatever you’re using has the functionality you want, all around.)
Once you get your landing page set up, you will want to integrate it with your ESP or CRM, so all those incoming email addresses have somewhere to go. (More about that further down in this post.)
As soon as someone enters their information and clicks on your landing page button, they should be taken to the next step of your lead generation funnel.
4. Send New Subscribers to a Thank You Page
When your brand-new subscriber clicks on that button, they want to know that “it worked.” They want to see confirmation that their information went through and they’ll be getting your lead magnet ASAP.
A thank you page provides that confirmation and gives them instructions on what happens next.
For example, your thank you page can tell your new subscriber to check their inbox for your first email, which will deliver their lead magnet to them. This is my preferred method of lead magnet delivery.
Some companies let new subscribers download their lead magnets directly from the thank you page. I prefer to use an email because it trains new subscribers to open emails from me. It also trains their internet service providers (ISPs) to deliver my emails to their inboxes.
You can also use your thank you page to get a new subscriber to take an additional action, like:
- Scheduling an appointment.
- Sharing your lead magnet with friends via social media.
- Viewing more information about your product or service.
Once your new subscriber has opted into your lead generation funnel, they’ll start receiving your welcome sequence.
Which means you’ll need a system to send that welcome sequence automatically.
5. Setting Up Your ESP or CRM to Accept New Subscribers
You are not allowed to send bulk emails from your personal email account.
Let me repeat that.
You are not allowed to send bulk emails from your personal email account.
It’s illegal under the CAN-SPAM Act. (Yes, that’s a real law.)
And yes, I have to say this because there are still business owners out there sending bulk emails from their personal email accounts.
To manage this problem, the wonderful world of technology has created email marketing services.
These are email service providers (ESPs) like MailChimp and Drip and customer relationship management platforms (CRMs) like HubSpot and Infusionsoft.
You will need one of these to send your welcome sequence, and all the sales and nurturing emails you write, to your subscribers. An email marketing service makes it much easier to send bulk emails and to automate certain emails, so they’re sent at the right time.
Trust me, you want an email marketing service.
If nothing else, you need to store all of those email addresses somewhere, so you can send that spiffy lead magnet your new subscriber just requested.
You can set your email marketing service up to integrate with your landing page, so it accepts and logs that new email address, then immediately triggers your first email to your new subscriber, delivering that lead magnet.
You’ll be able to track who opened which emails, who has and hasn’t purchased from an email and a lot more interesting data as well.
Now that your new subscriber has gotten their first email from you, they’ll need to get the rest of your welcome sequence.
6. Delivering Your Email Welcome Sequence
A welcome sequence is a series of 3-5 emails that you send to your new subscribers right after they’ve opted into your lead magnet and joined your email list. As mentioned earlier, I recommend that you use the first of these emails to deliver your lead magnet.
The next 2-4 emails should be delivered one per day over the next few days.
The point of these emails is to introduce your new subscriber to your company and your products and services. It gives you the opportunity to “show them around” virtually and demonstrate how the product or service they expressed interest in by downloading your lead magnet can benefit them.
This will gradually lead them into becoming a customer and making their first purchase. One of many, if you do it right.
I see you biting your nails with a terrified expression on your face right now.
I know what you’re thinking; “What the heck am I supposed to write in these emails?!”
It’s okay. I’ve got you.
When your email welcome sequence is written and set up, your lead generation funnel is almost finished! Just two more pieces to put in place. One at the very beginning of your funnel and one at the very end.
7. Send Traffic to Your Lead Generation Funnel
Now that everything is set up and ready to receive new subscribers, you have to tell your target audience where to find your lead generation funnel so you can build an email list.
This is typically referred to as “Traffic.”
To drive traffic to your landing page, you share the link to that landing page in as many places as possible.
Some of these are free traffic sources, such as:
- A button on every page of your website.
- At the end of blog posts.
- Asking friends, family and current customers to share the link.
- Adding it to your email signature for your personal emails.
Others are paid traffic sources, such as:
- Facebook ads
- Facebook boosted posts
- Google ads
- Google display ads
- YouTube ads
- Bing ads
Whichever you choose to use, the goal is to target that customer avatar you created earlier, using your chosen platform’s targeting system.
If you’re using free traffic sources, you’ll need to make sure your target audience can find you easily. If you’re using paid traffic, all of these companies have an obscene amount of information on us, which makes it pretty easy to target the right audience.
Once a person has gone through your entire lead generation funnel, from lead magnet to welcome sequence, you need to keep them interested in what you’ve got to offer.
8. Nurturing Your Subscribers to Convert Them into Customers
Not every person who downloads your lead magnet will be ready to buy right away.
Some of them will say yes to your offer immediately, because they’ve done their research and they’re convinced you’ve got the right solution for them.
Some are just starting to look for solutions to their problems. They’re at the beginning of their buyer’s journey and want more information before they plunk down their hard-earned cash.
It will take more time to build trust and authority with these people before they’re willing to become customers.
So, you add these folks to your regular email cadence and nurture them along with regular content about your products and services until they’re ready to buy.
Email nurturing may be the most important piece of your lead generation funnel, because it ensures that you have a steady stream of customers, instead of bursts of income here and there as you run promotions.
As your new subscribers learn to trust your company and see the value you offer through your regular emails, they’ll make the right choice and buy your product or service.
Ready to Build Your Own Lead Generation Funnel?
Awesome! I highly recommend it.
You can take the information from this post and all the other posts I’ve linked to and do it on your own. Everything you need is there.
Or, you can sign up for my course that walks you through the exact steps of building your own lead generation funnel for your business. You’ll get templates, personalized instruction, guidance and feedback on your work every step of the way.
Click on the button below to sign up for Email List Building Made SIMPLE!